hello Monday

I'm going to start by saying my shop and instagram ate my blog. Posting pictures to IG is fast and easy and my shop hit two milestones these last couple of weeks which results in a quiet space here. I'll post more on the shop news later but I do want to say how thankful I am for the amazing customers friends that support my little business.

Anyway, today I'm just going to share some pictures from a while back and just say hi. Maybe I'll catch up this week and post more. Maybe not. We'll see.

my grandma and my youngest enjoying a friday donut date

little girl, big chair

starting her young

"skipping" rocks

garden helper

headband from a friend, get one here

sister's first target milk treat

happy monday

Tenacious A's First Birthday

Here's a little recap of how we celebrated my youngest's first birthday.

The start of celebrating came the day before her actual birthday at the donut shop.

Most of you know that I have a little Friday tradition called "Friday Donut Dates" with my oldest. For those of you that didn't know about this, most Friday mornings we find a donut shop, doesn't always have to been the same one, she picks out her donut and then we sit and eat and chat. I usually snap a picture of her at some point in the process.

Anyway, all that to say Little Sister has been along to watch for a year now but has never been allowed her own donut.

Until her birthday.



There's also another tradition in our family that my great-grandparents started - Birthday Donuts. We all, and by all I mean a good chunk of my immediate family, meet at the donut shop, everyone gets to pick out their own donuts and then we sing the Happy Birthday to the birthday boy/girl.



It's a fun tradition and I think my Little Miss was ready for her donut after a year of watching.





We did some celebrating at home with our girl and then we had her party the following weekend.



I like to make the first birthday a little extra special and kind of go all out, for me anyway. Since Easter was the previous weekend I hit up the stores for all the discounted candy and decorations - it was going to be a spring birthday so why not save a little!!

Anyway, I made some food and had a little spread. I also ordered a custom banner from my friend, Heather's shop, CMHandmade. I think it looked perfect with the spread. You may remember it from the pictures my sister recently took for her one year photos.




Oh, and I made these things again but went with springy colors!



Anyway, the highlight of the party came when it was time for the birthday girl to dig into her cake.

We sang happy birthday.



And this happened.



I wish I could embed the video because she seriously sat like that for at least 10 full seconds. I even cut the cake in half and she barely moved.



Finally, she came up for air.



Not for long though.



I eventually took the cake away and she let me know about it.

She opened a few presents and that was that.




First birthday party in the books.



Happy Birthday to my sweet, awesome girl.

And thank you to everyone that celebrated her day with us, whether at the party, by email, text or instagram, whatever, we so appreciate you and you made our girl's day so very special!

First Weenie Roast at Our Land

It was finally warm enough last week to go out and have a little bonfire and weenie roast at our land.

It didn't take our oldest long to kick her shoes off and get a little dirty.



And we brought our dog, Duncan, along. He was in doggie heaven. Open spaces to run and snacks that the girls dropped to eat.



Who needs toys? Shovel, dirt and sisters - a vision of things to come!



I ventured off on my own little adventure through the land and took this picture to show y'all what we're dealing with. Thick woods.



It's funny the conversations these two have. They make my heart happy.



Little sister found snacks. I mean really, after yesterday's mud face and now this, it makes me wonder who's watching this kid.



Relaxin with a dog.



There's just something extra tasty about bonfire food.




And this girl again. Dancing and singing, "we're cooking hot dogs on our land."



Yep, I dig our land already. Now, just to move there!!

Our Easter in pictures

We did a little hunting at my parent's house. This year sweet P was old enough to participate so it was really fun to watch her running about looking for eggs.






















 

We had an awesome dinner, complete with smoked ham, turkey and stuffing and all the goodies. No pictures of the food but trust me, my dad can smoke a mean ham.

Then on Sunday, we started the day off at church. Well, before that I tried to get a couple pictures of us but that wasn't on the girls list of awesome things to do that day.

Nothing compliments an Easter dress quite like left over tattoos!

Then we went to church and celebrated Jesus' resurrection. After church the husband and I started talking about how Easter should be one of the biggest celebrations ever. Bigger than Valentine's day, Halloween and maybe even Christmas. I mean, Jesus died for us. Every single person, whether they accept it, or Him, or not. But it didn't end there, he conquered the grave! And that's why we celebrate Easter. It seems, at least to us anyways, that this should be a lot bigger deal.

That's why we're planning some changes next year in how we celebrate. We'll still do dinner, egg hunting and all that fun stuff but we also want to do more. I don't know what that will look like in the years to come but I do know that I want Easter to be special because it is.

Okay, back to pictures.

That is not chocolate. It is mud. Great mom, I know.

My grandpa's expression cracks me up here. So many great-grandkids.